mental link | day: 006

[shri]

[ Her options are at this point, are brood up how much she wants to kill Damon and Elena, or get on with work. She didn't do so well at brooding, though her mind is still so new, so sharp and edged and not kept inside of herself. But in this case, a fire trying to find new kindling to keep itself going. Her own impatience and frustration are evident. But when isn't she anyway - ]

( I was informed when I arrived that we need to be ... ascertaining particular pieces of information.

Have we begun such? If not, should we not begin planning to reconnoitre? )

[ She has already plans, but even so, if it's already been done - well, she's happy to be told if it means she doesn't have to go chasing her own tail. ]

( And does anyone know how to use these - light books - that has the time to show me? It keeps flashing at me and I cannot make it stop. I think it wants something. )

[ The data pad, she means the data pad, she's grouchy at it for not! giving her! the things! she wants! Being a grandma in space is a trial. ]

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[shri]

[ it is not enough for her to simply be wrapped up and taken to a soft place and not take back. It is not for her to lay back to another's action, even if they are given in kindness. She had been told once, that elephants only lie down when they're dead. Like the only way to know stillness is to abandon herself completely.

She cannot take his soft wings, his wrap of steady breath and warm embrace. Not for what he asks. Does he not understand, this is her? This is all of her. She does not exist before and after. She exists here:

The walls of Jhansi stretch high and stone. Blotted with dark weather stains, a white cut of man's need against a flat desert landscape. Bare sand and trees that jut up like teeth of the earth. Somewhere far, is the sound of bells, the chant of hymns. Cooking - at seven months pregnant, her belly is just starting to get in her way - but her duties as wife meant that to the kitchens she would go. Not her place so much, her husband was sure to never press his wife who wore weapons better than jewels to such tasks. But unacceptable, she thinks, to fail in any duty. To neglect anything that comes to her. The soft call of a woman's voice to her side, as the young woman - Kashi, the memory supplies. Wearing her knife at hip, and comes to catch her Rani's hand. His gift, remember, he will want to see you wearing it. Kashi threads the ring onto her littlest finger, the flat stones heavy, where they set to the gold hold.

he would want -

Lakshmi reached forward to Sam. A present action that bellies the memories, her hands that doesn't know how to be still. He cannot know hate if he does not know love. He cannot understand this pain if he does not understand the love it took away from her. She pushes up, a combatants toll. He will see, he will see enough, he will see the moment it was gone. She shoves him back down and hard as her forehead cracks forward against into his. Hard enough to make them both bleed. Panting hard, her eyes open, she bleeds her misery, her violence, the pain that cannot be let go of because she is alone from them all, she is the only one left. She exists here:

One step into the kitchens, and the flames hit her face with a roaring wave of heat. The child in her belly is gone, her husband is gone. Kashi is beside her still. Kashi whose hands only ever knew the sweetness of flowers, is blood stained, and Lakshmi - sword in hand, blood slick up her hands, her neck, splattered against her face pushes against the wave of - soldiers who are not soldiers that come pouring out of this place that is her home, that is her, that is where she will always exist.

Their red coats hide the blood. English, her mind chimes. English, and deceivers. Their soldiers who are not soldiers. Their soldiers who step towards her and she watches their red coats rip apart in a single act of transformation. Splitting apart their own skin of something so human to something so monsterous. 'Come here, pretty bitch, we've never tasted queen before.'

Kashi was only human. Kashi only knew flowers, wore her knives like toys not weapons because she could not stand the truth of them, no matter how skilled she was. Kashi was ripped apart in seconds. A childs doll, her pretty head smashed like fine glass when the Lycan hit her against the once great cooking pot. Hindi women of the desert don't wear the clothing that covers in the fetid summer air, and the Lycans teeth find no resistance as it feasts on a warm belly. Like a child suckling to a mother's breast, it laps across the wound it makes. The vampire that falls on the fresh corpse. Shoving for another bite.

She screams and screams and screams, something beyond battle cries and misery. She turns, a soldier's arm is ripped from its socket, she turns, and a priest is snapped in half. She turns, and the monsters pour forth, she turns and there is nothing but monsters. She cuts one down, and she is already too late. She cuts one down, and it wounds her in turn. She bleeds and she cannot bleed enough. She bleeds into the stones that is her home, and it will not be enough to wash this away. She kills and kills and kills and there is still always more. Her war will never be done until she has killed every last one.

The fires engulf the kitchens. There is nothing left but a blackened charred room and the smell of cooked flesh.

he would want- the ring slips off her finger.

She never went back for it. Nor does she let go of Sam, grinding against their now shared wound. ]

Never. Never think I will forget who made me. You think me prejudice but I assure you, I am much worse.

cw just to be safe: discussion of thoughts of wanting to die

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He takes everything she shows him. As she bleeds out her memories, a massacre of horror, he takes it all, pulling her in. She surges up into him, cracking her head against his so the physical pain is an echo of the agony in her mind, and it’s not the first time he’s been mentally so wrapped up in someone else in the midst of physical violence.

It sparks flickers of battles in his own mind - metal arms, a red star or a glowing hand, a cold, purposeful stride or a berserker charge, the shriek of rending metal and the tight band of arms around a waist, holding back, gunshots and blood and jolts of electricity. They’re nothing more with flashes, as he tries to keep them at bay, but with the two of them sharing mind space this closely, nothing stays hidden. There are no names, no faces, but it’s not as though there’s many people here with metal arms, and he can hardly contain his feelings.

The weapons that they were turned into, the monsters they see themselves as. The men that Sam would kill for, would die for - would live for, he promised, a promise so much harder than taking a life or giving your own. Which maybe says something about Sam and the life he's lived, that he could kill or die without batting an eye but living for someone takes so much more, but he is who he is.

And she is who she is.

She calls herself worse than prejudiced, but disagreement hangs heavy. ]

No. You're not.

[ There's very little worse than prejudice - and maybe that's a failing of Sam's, too. Not that he refuses to understand or accept prejudice, hell no, but that he can understand almost anything else when given the opportunity. He understands her, the images burned into his mind, and he knows exactly how seeing nothing but death and violence and war, having everything you love - everything you are - ripped away from you by monsters can leave you empty and angry and with nothing else than a purpose.

With nothing but the drive to wipe them all out, to stop them from doing to others what was done to you, and fuck does he understand feeling like you might as well lay down and cease to exist if you no longer have that purpose.

There is a moment, a curling tendril of fear that makes him want to grab her and never let go - how can he tell her that her war is over, that it didn’t follow her here, when it’s all she has? What will she do when she’s forced to confront that through life in the Nest, will a new purpose be enough or will she throw herself down like she did today?

Sam won't leave her. He won't. Maybe she won't like what he's got to say or what he wants to offer, but he knows being unable to leave the war behind, and not knowing what to do with yourself when you do. He knows the desperate, hollow feeling of there is no point, I am nothing else, and she’s -

She’s not his to lose, but she is. Whether she likes it or not, she’s a part of the Nest. They’re a part of each other, and he’s not willing to lose that part. ]

It's not fair, Rani, I know, but- [ But nothing in life is ever fair, and she knows that as well as he does. ] I need to know how far it goes. If it’s just vampires, because there’s a hell of a lot of people in the Nest who’ve got control issues that don’t drink blood.

[ He says the Nest because he means it, because they are his people and there's too many of them who hear the word monster and think "yes, that's me," but as much in each other's heads as they are, the impression that he’s thinking of specific people is there.

Sam's not afraid for Damon or Elena. She promised not to harm them and he believes her - he's afraid for the others, who see Elena in themselves. Afraid that Lakshmi might see it, too. ]

[shri]

[ She balks, a horse at the bit, shoving away from him - the hurt, rage, bitterness, things that she takes like embers in both hands. Shoving him down and back, because it is true - what else is she? An animal backed into a corner. The tiger backed into the corner. I could see it in its eyes, Rani, that day, I know we were both the same. Jhalkari's face so like her eyes reflecting back into her own a truth. The turn is an easy one that she takes to pin with because he thinks, and she acts, and she wants something, anything to this slippering feeling of being in the hive that puts her on every edge to hold onto. Shoving up and into him, snatching his wrists and pushing them into the ground - breathing hard. Her jaw grit, working something between her teeth - finally, he asked a question that she can respect, sink her teeth into - that understands just what she even cares about. That she can respect being cared about.

What were Damon and Elena to her, really? Nothing. A chit of a girl and her overprotective lover. They were as foolish as they were wretched. How many would she kill to stop this, stop it all? An empire's worth. What good was this world? ]

You put down a rabid dog, no matter how children beg me to spare their once beloved pets. [ Her breath is harsh, the curl of his blood over her nose, around in a sweeping river. She is no better, she knows, than a killer. Whatever she was, had been, could have become. It's gone. By what she must be. In the rain of fire and debris, she will no longer pretend otherwise.

She is beyond apologizing for it. She never will again. ] But if you ask what I wage my war with? I know exactly the creature that is to blame.

[ She pulls up enough to meet his eyes, flicking between them. Looking for something, something she can latch onto - his words before, that he would do what must be done. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ She pins him and his body moves automatically, one leg between hers and the other over, setting himself up for some leverage if he needs to twist his way out from under her - but he doesn't, because he can feel the way his question resonates with her, and if this means he's finally going to get an answer to what he really cares about -

She is no better than a killer and though she doesn't want his understanding, she has it. She is what the war has made her, she is what she'd had to become - and so was he, once. So is he still, in some ways. She is what she is and she has nothing else left inside her but the flicker of a flame stoked by every day she fought.

He wants to change her mind, not for himself or anyone else, but for her. So she can see another path but to keep going until the fire finally snuffs itself out.

But he has his answer, and she's looking for one in return.

There are whispers in his mind, the words clear despite the voices being blurred and distorted - 'I will fuck it up, you can't let that happen,' 'Next time is the last time, do whatever it takes,' 'If that's what it takes to stop me, I don't want you to hold back,' - and he holds her gaze, steady and determined.

He doesn't reply out loud, just gives her who he is, the feeling inside him that can be summed up easily by the words etched in his bones: these things we do, that others may live.

He is who he is, too, and he will always do what must be done. He will always fight to protect those who can't, always come after those who are lost, will always sacrifice so others don't have to. ]

[shri]

[ She presses heavy to the hold, fingers around his wrist and her weight into the knee between his leg as his works up between hers - if not for topic, how intimate this would be. If not for the topic, how lacking a word like intimate could be for this: this bound up in each other's miseries.

Because she can not help but bite at the bit, when he gives her such things - no, no she will have no comfort, not just because it had been denied her - but because so many still had none. So many suffered, and her people, her people - ]

I told you. Keep it.

[ It has no heat anymore, only a thick, full misery in her words as she pushes up off of him. ] I will have solace when my work is done.

[ Exhausted, wary, she undoes herself from him. A wound that needs to be licked, curled away from. Shaking, ragged, burned out to the wick that desperately holds to its own heat, she reaches for her blade once more. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It's more than intimacy. It's occupying the same mental space, it's for a moment bleeding so much into someone else that your breath might as well be their own, it's a tangled mess where similarities only serve to heighten the differences.

She has a piece of him now, and her mind has twisted into his even after they no longer share the space he temporarily created for them. It lingers, their connection stronger than it'd been before, even as they pull aware from each other. ]

It's who I am.

[ He's not sure he knows how to keep it any more, if he ever did. Doesn't know how to do anything but leave it up there for her to take, if it ever comes to it -

If she ever believes herself worthy of anything like comfort, when the people she failed will never get it. It's familiar, achingly familiar, from himself and Shiro and Bucky, but from that, too, he knows not to push it where it can't be accepted.

Not now, anyway, though he won't take it back either.

He untangles his legs from hers as he pushes himself upwards. He can feel Shiro raging in the back of his mind, worried and angry and seconds away from losing control, and his mind is already split as he watches her, making no move to stop her. ]